World Chronicle
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Not an official UN document. For information purposes only. UNITED NATIONS World Chronicle PROGRAMME: No. 946 recorded 2 September 2004 GUEST: Salil Shetty Director of UN Millennium Campaign JOURNALISTS: Thalif Deen, InterPress Service/IPS Louis Hamann, Canadian Broadcasting Corp/CBC MODERATOR: Tony Jenkins “Keeping the Promise to the World’s Poor” World leaders agreed a few years ago to a specific plan, for improving the lot of humanity by the year 2015: The Millennium Development Goals. Can pressure from citizens’ groups make governments deliver on the promises made to the world’s poor? Would an additional US $ 50 billion in annual aid be enough to break the vicious cycle of poverty, ignorance, and disease? Can better trade policies keep 30,000 children from dying every day? In this edition of World Chronicle, these are some of the pressing questions addressed to Salil Shetty, Director of the UN’s Millennium Campaign. WORLD CHRONICLE is produced by the News &Media Division, Department of Public Information, United Nations, New York, NY 10017, U.S.A. Duration: 28:00" Executive Producer: Michele Zaccheo Director: Ivan Stoynov Production Assistant: Lebe Besa Page 2 ANNOUNCER: From the United Nations in New York, an unedited interview programme on global issues. This is World Chronicle. And here is the host of today's World Chronicle. JENKINS: Hello, I’m Tony Jenkins and this is World Chronicle. It’s not often that world leaders agree on anything– but a few years ago they did commit to a specific plan, an agenda for improving the lot of humanity by the year 2015, the so-called “Millennium Development Goals”. Can governments, businesses, and activists rise to the challenge – and deliver on the promises made to the world’s poor? Our guest today is the Director of the UN’s Millennium Campaign, Mr. Salil Shetty Mr. Shetty welcome. Tell us briefly if you could about the Millennium Development Goal campaign. What does it consist of? Where and how is it carried out? Can a campaign be sustained for more than a decade? It’s an awful long period of time. Have you had any early successes or setbacks you can tell us about? SHETTY: Thanks Tony. Thanks for bringing me on the show and before I say something about the campaign I think it’s fair that we say a word or two about the Millennium Goals itself. These are a very simple eight set of outcomes, which world leaders agreed [to] at the Millennium Summit, which happened in September 2000. And it was I think the largest gathering of heads of states ever in the history of the UN, and people keep asking me what are these goals about. And the way I respond is that it’s really about the basic human needs like water, food, health and education. So that’s what the goals are about. Now, of course, it’s not unusual for world leaders to sign things and agree to things…. JENKINS: They’re very good at that, aren’t they? SHETTY: Yes, so we’ve seen many commitments, so the question really is you know, what is going to be done about these goals? Are we likely to get to them? And that is where the campaign comes in. The campaign has been set up very much to, in a sense, take the goals to the people because the goals were agreed to in an intergovernmental process. But for these goals to be achieved at the end of the day each country has to take responsibility and its only people’s pressure which is going to make these goals happen, if at all, that’s the only way it’s going to happen. So, the campaign… JENKINS: People in the countries where the goals are to be met, or people in the wider community? SHETTY: One of the unique things about the Millennium Declaration, within which the goals are located, and the goals themselves, is that for the first time almost there was an explicit recognition of shared responsibility which is why its partly called the Millennium Page 3 Compact: that rich countries have to deliver their share of responsibility and developing countries have to do the same thing. So, rich countries are promised that they will do at least the core set of things like; number one, increase development assistance of aid to levels which are required to help achieve the Millennium goals. Also to set a much more level playing field in terms of trade, I mean increase market access, etc. Also, to deal with the whole issue of debt which is a major burden, particularly for Africa but not exclusively. And also to make some of the intellectual property rights regimes more evenly balanced across the globe. So that’s what rich countries promised, but developing countries have to do a whole lot themselves to get their own house in order and have the right policies, mobilize domestic resources, be more transparent and accountable to their own citizens. So that is what the Millennium Compact is about. JENKINS: Alright, so there are ton of questions on this. And joining us in the studio, we have Thalif Deen of the Inter Press Service/IPS and Louis Hamann of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporations/CBC, Louis… HAMANN: Mr. Shetty, you said the big question now is really…are these goals going to be met? That’s the big question. Do you think they are? I mean the way things are going - we’ve been into this for what over four years now. Are they going to be met or not? SHETTY: That’s the paradox. I mean that’s why the campaign is so essential to the process. If we carry on a sort of business as usual basis, we have some countries who are going to meet some of the goals and there are others who are kind of you know, in the middle group they may or may not, it’s kind of uncertain, and there are others, the third batch which include a lot of the sub-Saharan African countries and some of the other least developed countries where it’s quite an uphill task to meet the goals. And the paradox is that while on the one hand it’s difficult to meet all the goals and all the places on a business as usual basis, there is absolutely no reason why all goals can’t be met in all countries if we get our act together. And that is really the question of where the campaign comes in – can we in the next two years really get our act together in a focused way and work on a partnership basis, otherwise the chances are low. HAMANN: And how would you rate the job that you’ve done so far because you admitted it yourself, a big part of this is public pressure on policy makers who actually make these things happen. Yet, if I walk out on the street right now and say Millennium Development Goals, a lot of people will look at me and ask me what I am talking about. So, have you been able to reach in the last four years... have you been able to reach the people on the street as it were? Page 4 SHETTY: Well I think what’s important - and that’s one of the main starting points for the campaign - is that we are not coming in as if parachuting from nowhere, you know, I mean the important thing is that many of these things had been going on for a long time and we just need to build on it and there is no doubt that where people’s pressure has been applied – things have made a difference. We have some very well recorded cases much sort of talked about like the whole jubilee - that campaign. I mean, if there was not pressure on leaders during the time of the famous G-8 meeting, we might not have had some of the initiatives, which happened in that. To take the case of education in Tanzania for example, the universal primary education which was announced by the government of Tanzania, of course we have a government which is well-disposed but the fact those people’s pressure to make primary education free has resulted not only in millions of Tanzanian children going to school today but also in our neighboring countries, like Kenya and Malawi, have also taken similar steps. So, I wouldn’t say that any of this is because of the Millennium Campaign or any one group doing things but citizen’s pressure is very, very important. You asked have we been able to create, you know, does every person on every street of the world now know about the Millennium Goals? For us it’s not the word Millennium Goals which is important, the more important is the substantive issues. I mean, do people realize that health, education and water are basic human rights. Are they putting pressure on their governments to deliver these things? That’s very important. I think more and more of that is happening, we played a small part in it. DEEN: You have eight goals and out of the eight, seven goals are basically to be met by developing countries in terms of education, health and there is a deadline, they have to meet the goals by 2015. The eighth goal I’m told deals with development aid, terms of trade, debt relief and technology transfer. But the developing countries say there’s no deadline on the part of the rich countries, so the deadline is obviously for the poorer countries and not for the rich countries.